Lincoln City, Oregon 3/06

Gathered with good friends in this house
that is not our house but is our house,
I stare at the ocean and dream. Last night
I lay in bed with the endless murmur of the surf
underpinning a vague restlessness.
I wondered about love and its meaning and its
notable absence.

I have had love in my life, some great
and some ordinary, but is it fair to put
such judgments on love, to vest it with
degrees and gradients? Does this taxonomy
strip love of all value? My world is not
so simple anymore. Unrequited love
has left a hole in my heart, a void in my life.

It isn’t that I’m incomplete without you.
I know that I’m a whole and viable person,
but you brought me something new,
something different. You made me aware of
shapes and sounds that had never had meaning
before. In truth they were always present,
but in my ignorance I paid them scant attention.

What you provided was perspective, or at least
a different perspective than the one I had
grown comfortable with. I see now the
contemptibility of comfort. It is only when we
are pushed into uncharted oceans that
we can be fully human, and grow beyond ourselves.

From this roost above the Pacific I can
look down and see patterns not visible
from the sand. I can see the formation of waves
and the ebb and flow of the tide. It may seem trite
or simple, but perhaps I wouldn’t have noticed
or given thought had I not met you.

My friends grant me the space, the time,
and the freedom to be myself. I believe
I sometimes fail to return the favor. I’m
certain I failed with you. Now I’m left with
silent reflection and words on a page. There is
a reason it is called foolscap. It is only from the
perspective of advancing time and perhaps
advancing years that I can see myself as the fool.

The search for daily meaning is too much work.
I’m trying to find meaning in the
larger scheme of life, identify my place in the world.
Grandiose? Perhaps. Sadly, I find myself bogged down
in the minutiae, and further complicate matters for
myself by wondering what it means to seek meaning.

So what does it mean to be in love?
I can’t tell you that. I can’t be sure what
it means to me, but I know that I’ve had it
and I’ve lost it, and I miss it. I will not mourn
my lost love. I will celebrate that I once had love,
and look forward to its return.

Missing my muse

So here it is, over a month since I last saw you. Being as our affair lasted a mere six weeks (I say mere, but the truth is it was a lifetime for me) one would expect that I would be over it, beyond, have moved on with my life. That turns out not to be the case. You touched my heart, my soul. It isn't that life has no meaning now, it's just that the meaning has changed in a sad and vacant way. I wish I knew how to mend the wound in your heart. I tried to bandage it with love and reassurance, but I guess I just had bad timing. I wish I could talk to you. I wish I could see your smile - it lit up my life and made my heart leap each time I saw it. I hope you can get your head sorted out about life and love and divorce and motherhood and grandmotherhood and work and everything else, and then I hope you'll realize how good we were together and how good we could be together again. Come back to me, my sweet muse, come back to me.

Long time no blog

So here I am, back. I'm nursing a broken heart. I had the most wonderful 6 week love affair with a woman perfect for me in so many ways it was astounding. She realized that she was unprepared for a relationship right now, and I am left wounded. I thought I was beyond the tears, but I'm not.

Here is my latest poem:

Into the setting sun

Much has been made over the notion
that life is some sort of journey,
a trek through joy, adversity, ecstasy, and grief.

Some march with determination, others
roam and wander aimlessly, but I
choose to stand still and let life
come to me.

For those who journey, the trip always heads west.
Into the setting sun they travel, ever growing nearer
the end of day.

Yet I stand alone, and face the dawn.
I will not be cowed by life.
I will not hide from love.
I embrace each moment, as I long for the embrace
of my muse.

Life swirls and spins around me,
there is too much to grasp all at once,
life must be sampled, a bit at a time.

Socrates had it wrong.
Do not stop to examine your life.
Live, breathe, cry, laugh, love.
Mostly love.

It is, finally, the loveless life
that is not worth living.
The sun will set in its own time.
I will not step closer to it.

Next...

Revision

I’m revising my life.
Seeing things again.
Seeing things for the first time.
Seeing things differently.

I can’t edit my past
but I can see it in a new light.
I can imagine the future
with new eyes.

There are twenty-four hours
in a day, but what if there
were twenty-five?
What would you do with that extra hour?

I’m going to live my life
with new eyes in new light
like it was always
the twenty-fifth hour.

I’ll find the new,

treat it as precious,
live it fully.
I see it now.

My latest poem

Emergency Room

“I have a headache,” I said.
“The worst headache
I’ve ever had.”

The doctor used words like
aneurysm, and meningitis,
and tumor.

They did a CAT scan and an EKG.
“We want to do a spinal tap,”
the doctor said.
“You’re joking, right?” I said,
but he wasn’t.

For a few precious drops of
an utterly clear liquid
there are several minutes
of exquisite pain.

First is the anesthetic,
administered subcutaneously
through a large-gauge
needle in three locations.

It hurts like hell.

Now the fun starts.
With an even larger gauge needle
the doctor plunges into the
barely numbed tissue
seeking the gap between
two vertebrae.

He doesn’t find it on the first try.

He doesn’t find it on the second try.

By the third try I’m nearly
in tears, and let out a
“sonuvabitch,” just to let the doctor
know he has my attention.

I ask to see the samples,
never having seen spinal
fluid, much less my own
spinal fluid.

It is a disappointment.
He could be showing me
water, or acid, or anything.
Four tubes, a few drops in each.

They might illuminate the
rest of my life.
What stories will they tell?
What secrets will they keep?

Do I have meningitis? An
aneurysm? Tumor? Cerebral
hemorrhage?
Will I live? Die? Vegetate?

“We’re keeping you overnight,”
the nurse told me. “Doctor says
there is some blood in your spinal fluid
sample and he wants an MRI.”

My question is, How can there not be
blood in my spinal fluid sample?
He stuck a hunk of pipe through
me to retrieve it, surely it made
me bleed?

The hospital is full, there are no beds.
I spend the night in Emergency,
a liter of saline with potassium
dripping into the back of my hand.

In the morning I’m pasted with
stick-on electrical contacts and
given an EKG.

In radiology, they image my brain.

I ask to see the images, and I’m told
there is a law that prohibits them
from showing me pictures of my
own head.

I’m struck by another example
of the myriad things in life
which I just plain
don’t understand.

All these tests with
their mysterious alphabet names,
revealing more about me
than I know myself.

When does a person
stop being a person?
I’m reduced to a collection
of charts and images and
numbers and notes.

Native Americans often objected
to being photgraphed. They felt
that the camera would steal their
soul.

I’m not a mystic, but I feel like
something has been taken from me.
Some test, some sample, some something
has diminished me, and I will never
be the same.

Online Hearts and Backgammon

Decided to get over this.

OK - that's that for today, then.